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SONGS OF THE 
WORLD WAR 



SONGS 

OF 

THE WORLD 
WAR 

By 

EDWARD • S VanZILE 



Philip Goodman • New York • 1918 



^^4 

^^:;.. 



^^ 



COPYRIGHT 191S BY PHILIP GOODMAN 
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES 



Thanks are herewith given to the New_ York Times, 
Morning Sun and Evening Sun, Westminster Gazette, 
Paris Herald, etc., for permission to publish certain 
poems included in this collection. 

E. S. V. Z. 



DEC 23 19i8 

©C1.A508743 



r> 



Dedicated 

TO 

M. B. V. Z, 



Contents 

The Battle Hymn of Democracy 9 

France 12 

The Kaiser's Prayer 14 

Peace 16 

The Warning of a Wraith 17 

A Soldier's Son 19 

We Pay the Price— We Old! 21 

The Armory Steps 22 

The Slacker Inexplicable 24 

Hearts of Oak 25 

The Kaiser Wept 28 

Our Honor Roll 29 

The American Legion 30 

The Kaiser's Vow 31 

Somewhere in France 33 

Kultur's Christmas Tree 34 

Hail and Farewell! 36 

The Little Metal Disk 37 

The Belgians 39 

A Little Boy of Rheims 40 

The Tale of An Ace 42 

Atonement 45 

The Word of God 46 

Whence Cometh War? 48 

Toy Soldiers 49 



Spring's Judas Kiss 


51 


A Mystery 


53 


Failure ! 


54 


Through War the Truth 


55 


Tim the Tough 


57 


The Blasphemous 


60 


Never Again! 


61 


The Only Free 


62 


Two Crosses 


64 


A Service Flag 


66 


The Voice of God 


68 


A Transport 


71 


Madness Divine 


73 


God, Hearten Us! 


75 


His Black Sheep 


76 


Rise Up! Rise Up, Crusaders! 


77 


The Writing On the Wall 


80 


Alas, 'Twas Not a Dream! 


81 


Broadway 


84 


Be Silent Now! 


86 


The Chimes 


87 


Edith Cavell 


89 


Under Which Flag? 


91 


Tolstoy's Dream 


93 



THE BATTLE HYMN OF DEMOCRACY 

WHAT hear we in the world today? 
The thunder of the guns, 
Their rumbling and grumbling, and the 
pathway of the suns 
Is echoing with wailings as the women find their 

dead ; 
And there's shrieking of the shrapnel where the grass 
is turning red. 

But there's music! Don't you hear it? 
'Tis a hymn the nations sing, 
As their spirit calls to spirit, 
And they crown the People king. 

'Tis a Marseillaise so wonderful 
That all the world's awake 
To the story of the glory 
That is won for freedom's sake. 

Ah, the groaning and the moaning 

And the price the dying pay! 
The earth is rent with anguish. 
But there is no other way ! 
But, lo, the light is coming and a mighty chorus 

rings 
That stirs our souls to gladness, 
And to sadness those of kings. 
They know who sit upon their thrones 



The menace of the song; 
They played at dice with human bones, 
And all the world went wrong. 
And ages after ages they mocked at God, and said 
That nations were but toys for them, the living and 
the dead. 

But there's music! Don't you hear it? 
Where the East and West have met, 
And the people cry for justice. 
And the monarchs pay their debt? 
Where ocean calls to ocean 
And where mountains haunt the sky, 
The day has come when truth shall live 
And ancient error die. 

*Tis a Marseillaise so marvelous 
The Earth is singing now — 
As the peoples find their power and fulfill a sacred 

vow — 
That the stars that dance along the sky 
Its rhythm seem to feel 
And the universe is throbbing 
With a glad, triumphant peal. 

Ye dead who paid the price for us. 
Your names shall never die; 
But kings shall be forgotten 
In the splendid by and by; 
And from a world's democracy. 
That's born of blood and woe, 
A harvest shall be garnered 
From the seed its heroes sow. 



10 



What hear we in the world today ? 

A paean wild and sweet, 
The People's song of victory; 
And where the nations meet 
Not king shall call to brother king, 
But race shall speak to race; 
And man, no longer slave to man, 
Can look God in the face! 



11 



FRANCE 
1. 

WHAT meaneth France to you? 
In those old days, before the Horror came, 
Before there broke upon our startled view 
The awful depths that measure human 
shame, 
Before Man blushed for what a Hun will do 

France stood for joy — ^was worthy of the name. 
France taught us art, and beauty was her god ; 
And wit she gave us, sparkling as her wine, 
And o'er her land, where centuries had trod, 
There hung the glamour of a light divine 
That lured our feet to that seductive sod 

Whose ancient glories could be yours or mine. 
France gave us then the best she had to give — 
We turned to her to teach us how to live. 

2. 

What meaneth France today? 

Red years have passed, and she has shown a soul 
That shines for Man upon his groping way 

To some far-distant and resplendent goal — 
Where truth shall reign and lies cannot betray. 

And as the ages o'er the ages roll, 



12 



To France shall turn the tribute that they give 

Who love what's highest in the hearts of men ; 
And to a land where dauntless freemen live 

Shall come new glory in the glad days when 
The gold from dross has filtered through a sieve, 
And peace and pleasures shall be ours again. 
For this of France shall men say bye-and-bye: 
"She taught us how to live — and how to die!" 



13 



THE KAISER'S PRAYER 



G 



OD of my fathers, grant me aid 
That I may rout my countless foes ! 

By Thee were guns and cannons made, 
From Thee the joy of battle flows. 



II. 

God, who gave me might and power, 
Thou knowest that my heart is pure; 

Be with me in this awful hour, 

That I and mine may still endure. 

III. 

Thout art the God who loveth war. 
And famine, rapine, blood and death; 

1 pray Thee stand beside me, for 
Thou knowest what my spirit saith. 

IV. 

The soul of me is linked with Thine 
To bid the blood of heroes flow; 

The death we give them is divine, 
And in Thy name I bid them go. 



14 



V. 

God of my fathers, still be kind 

To them who raise Thy banner high, 

Whilst Thou and I together find 
The surest way for them to die. 

VI. 

They do my bidding — God, look down 
And bless the sword that I have drawn ! 

My blight shall fall on field and town 
And thousands shall not see the dawn. 

VII. 

To Thee, O Lord, I give all praise 

That Thou hast made my hand so strong ; 

That now, as in my father's days, 

The King and God can do no wrong! 



15 



PEACE? 

PEACE ? There is no sweeter word man ever 
spake ! 
It brings us dreams and visions of a time 
When love shall rule, and all the world shall make 

Submission to a sovereign sublime ; 
Shall worship God, the father and the king, 

Who teacheth us the spirit of this word 
That Christ proclaimed, and still the angels sing, 
The whispered hope that warring ages heard. 

But, hark, today it falls from traitor lips ! 

The dream it brings is born to blind our eyes; 
*Tis as the flag that's flaunted by the ships 

Where black should wave, or else the pirate lies. 
Yes, peace we crave, but, in Jehovah's name, 

'Tis not for us who would be true to God; 
'Tis as the kiss that made Iscariot's shame — 

The coward's kiss that weaklings give the rod. 



16 



THE WARNING OF A WRAITH 

IT was Napoleon! I dreamed a dream, and saw 
the Corsican. 
His face cut like a cameo, this short, plump, 

swarthy man 
Displayed a gleam of humor sardonic in his eyes, 
And the mouth of him seemed hardened by epigrams 

and lies. 
And seated there before me in my library, he said: 
"The battlefields of Europe, sown with millions of 

the dead. 
Recall to me the splendor and the savagery of years 
When men were mine to slaughter and women made 

for tears; 
When I promised to the conquered what I never 

planned to give — 
My dynasty is in the dust but still my methods live ! 

"I butchered for myself alone, but swore I fought 

for France; 
I prated of her happiness, but staked it on a chance ; 
I drained her of her valiant youth in Glory's name, 

and when 
They vanished in the wake of war, France gave, and 

gave again. 
I coveted the gorgeous East and led my legions far; 
They died beneath the Pyramids believing in my 

star. 



17 



Spain, Holland, Prussia, Italy and Austria were 

mine ; 
It was not strange victorious I held myself divine. 
Held, if there were a God on high — and doubter 

was I then — 
He'd chosen me of all the race to rule His world 

of men. 

"And now another strives to do what I could not 

achieve. 
He tells his people all is his — and, lo, the fools 

believe ! 
He hateth England, as did I, because she rules the 

sea — 
His island's waiting, somewhere, as it waited once 

for me. 

"I had my Wagram and my Austerlitz, my Jena, 

it is true, 
And dreamed not in those frenzied days of fatal 

Waterloo ; 
And I was greater — Bonaparte — upstart and lowly 

born 
Than he, the Hohenzollern, whose scions were my 

scorn. 

"Tell them who war for liberty against the Kaiser's 

might 
That I — one time Napoleon — ^who walks again at 

night, 
Revisiting, a spectre, the glimpses of the moon, 
Know well no man can own all men — and he must 

know it soon !" 



18 



A SOLDIER'S SON 



GOOD-NIGHT! Gk)ocl-night ! Don't cry, 
my boy, for you are a soldier's son ; 

Tomorrow you'll play with your waving 
flags, your sword and your little gun ; 

Vou'll go to school and you'll sing the songs the 
boys of our country sing — 

What's that you say? You are sad tonight and 
lonely and — everything? 

XL 

Vou'd like to speak to your daddy ! I know — but 
you mustn't cry ; 

For daddy is over the sea, my boy. He'll come to 
us bye-and-bye ; 

And he'll ask me, dear, when he's here again, with 
the medal that he has won. 

If every night, when you went to sleep, you smiled 
like a soldier's son. 



III. 

If every night, when you said your prayer, you spoke 
like a little man 

Who tries to do, while his daddy's gone, the bravest 
and best he can. 



19 



Good-night, my dear, youVe a soldier's son. Now, 

kiss me and go to sleep ; 
For you and mother are soldiers, too — and soldiers, 

my boy, don't weep ! 



WE PAY THE PRICE— WE OLD! 

I. 

YOUTH pays the price, you say? But I am 
old, 
My hair is white, the blood in me is cold; 
But is the agony that comes to me 
Less keen than his who dies beyond the sea? 

IL 

Nay, he has fought and fallen for the right, 

His soul has known the ecstasy of fight; 

He dies but once but daily do I die 

Who strike no blow, must let the ships go by. 

in. 

My heart's not here, but somewhere there in France, 
Where life and death hang ever on a chance, 
Where heroes find their glory and their grave^ — 
The brave sleep well who sleep beside the brave. 

IV. 

We pay the price, we old, who cannot fare 
Far, far afield with our crusaders there; 
Nor know the frenzy and the joy of strife. 
Nor win the death that most ennobles life. 



21 



I 



THE ARMORY STEPS 

SAW them by the guarded gate 

Of noisy muster hall; 
They'd planned their lives, but here was 
Fate 
That had no heart at all. 



His face was pale, her eyes were dry ; 

And, hand in hand, they seemed 
Like spirits waking, asking why 
Their hearts no longer dreamed 

Of castles in the sun-kissed air, 
Where they should live and know 

The joys of life that blossom where 
The flowers of love shall grow. 

I saw the ages pass along, 

And ever on my sight 
A maiden sad, a soldier strong 

Asked questions of the night. 

Through all the blood-red years on years 

Since war and love began, 
Youth gazed at youth, and there were tears — 

And man was killing man. 



22 



Last night I saw the boy and maid 
That Greece and Egypt knew; 

She high in heart, he unafraid; 
To love and country true. 

And ever while the world shall be 
They'll kiss and say good-bye; 

The maid to tell her hero he 
Must save his flag — or die. 



23 



THE SLACKER INEXPLICABLE 

y A I ^ IS strange, indeed ! He's of our oldest blood ; 

JJL His fathers fought when foes were at the 

flood 

At Bunker Hill and Lundy's Lane and when 

The blue-coats faced Lee's staunch, mistaken men. 

He's of our best, and yet his voice we hear 
Not, as we'd wish, in accents strong and clear, 
But tuned to please the alien ears that crave 
Denunciation of our leal and brave. 

How can he sleep, from fear that dreams may come» 
And he should hear an old time fife and drum. 
And see the spectres of his fathers pass, 
The blood he boasts run red upon the grass? 

How can he look his brothers in the face 
Who sail the seas, full worthy of their race — 
This feeble soul who prates of peace, and jeers 
At truths divine men die for through the years? 



24 



HEARTS OF OAK 

England 

I. 

WHO said the heart of England was not the 
heart of old? 
Who told us that it beat today for only- 
games and gold; 
That petty men who buy and sell, and only bargains 

make, 
Had slain the soul that gave its strength to Welling- 
ton and Drake? 

II. 

Who miourned for Britain's glory as a splendor that 
has passed? 

Who wailed that England's mighty arm was weak- 
ening at last; 

That her dream of glory faded just when Freedom 
called for men, 

That the hand that smote the Corsican could never 
smite again? 

III. 

Who said the heart of England was not the heart of 
old, 



That the prowess of her heroes is a tale that has been 

told? 
Who sighed for vanished valor and a might that is 

no more, 
Who told the world Britannia was dying at the 

core? 

IV. 

O, ye who sang thy sullen songs, or spake sharp 

words of blame, 
The heroes of the Marne and Aisne are bringing ye 

to shame; 
For the oaken heart of England beats as strong and 

high today 
As when it won at Waterloo — and made a tyrant 

pay. 

New England 
I. 

WHO said New England's valor was a bauble 
she has sold, 
That she'd lost the soul that made her great 
in epic days of old; 
That her sturdy sons deserted her to hasten to the 

quest 
Of the gold that comes to seekers in that wonder- 
land, the West? 

II. 

Who said that where their scions fought to make a 
nation free, 



26 



Who shed their blood to found a flag from Cham- 
plain to the sea, 

There dwelt a race degenerate, forgetful of the 
fame 

That had given world-wide glory to the meaning 
of her name? 

III. 

Who said New England's lonely farms were symbols 

of a soul 
That had lost the light of liberty and sought a lesser 

goal, 
That a people great at Lexington, and dear to 

Lincoln's heart. 
Had grown too weak and worldly to act the hero's 



part? 



IV. 



Your sons have given them the lie who doubted 

that you'd rise 
To fight and die for Freedom beneath the Flemish 

skies ; 
And, lo, the world is ringing with what you do and 

dare, 
And on New England's valiant heart France pins 

the Croix de Guerre! 



27 



THE KAISER WEPT 

THE Kaiser wept. Through hot salt tears he 
gazed 
On ruined lands, where war's red hand had 
blazed 
A graveyard for the splendor of the spring, 
Where fields are black and birds no longer sing. 

On towns and hamlets there has come a blight 
Where there in France it seems forever night, 
Where sunbeams shudder and turn shadows when 
They seek in vain the homes of happy men. 

For there in France, where Comfort and Content 
Went hand in hand, and were with Beauty blent, 
There stalks Despair, and where her children smiled 
Are mounds of dead and homes that were defiled. 

The Kaiser smiled, and thanked his tribal god 
No blight like this had come to German sod ; 
Then turned away and laid him down and slept — 
His god must wonder why the Kaiser wept! 



28 



OUR HONOR ROLL 

I. 

THEY'RE growing longer, as the days go by, 
These lists of ours of those who fight and die ; 
Our honor roll I read, mine eyes grown dim ; 
Ah, must it come, this glorious crown, to him? 

IL 

To him who left me with his earnest face 
Unsmiling, firm ; and in his strength and grace 
Strode seaward with his fellows through the snow, 
And left me lonely in my pride and woe? 

III. 

"Well, good-bye. Dad!" His manly voice I hear. 
And know his soul is innocent of fear; 
And in my ears his parting words shall be 
Forever sweetest of all sounds to me. 

IV. 

But day by day my tearful eyes shall scan 
The scroll of them who perish man by man, 
Who fall to sleep just when they've won their 

fame — 
Shall scan the scroll in terror of a name. 



29 



THE AMERICAN LEGION 

HY glory, France, the splendor of thy soul, 
Are dear to us who owe to thee a debt; 
For from the past the memories unroll 
Of stricken fields and of the foe we met. 



T 



The tie is close that binds thee to our past 
Whose fathers staked their fortune on a chance; 

Who faced defeat what time the die was cast. 
Their only hope the sturdy arm of France. 

Thy strivings and thy victories are ours, 
Thy heroes and our heroes are the same; 

And where our dead are sleeping fall the flowers 
That Frenchmen cull in honor of their fame. 

We've given thee the little that we could, 
It was not in our manhood to forget; 

Beside thee on the battle line they've stood 

Who've paid thee with their lives for Lafayette. 



30 



THE KAISER'S VOW 

^4 T N the name of God, we will sign a peace!" 
I Quoth he of a royal strain. 
"Fm weary of blood, and the war must cease ; 
And I'll not wage war again. 

"I'm a king of kings, and my word I give, 

My word that I never break. 
That rU slay no more, and ye all shall live 

In the safety I make. 

"Ye have nought to do but submit to me, 

I'm tired of tears and groans; 
I merely bid ye to bend the knee 

To us who were given thrones. 

"Is it much to ask of an earth that's red 
With the blood of the young and strong? 

Forget the past and forget the dead. 
Nor whisper of who was wrong. 

"Beware, oh ye who would force the fight 

Until millions more have died. 
I show ye a hand that's clean and white 

Are ye not satisfied? 

"A hand extended to all the race, 
That ye may stoop and kiss ; 



31 



While Man looks up into my face 
And sees how kind it is. 

"Ye have heard my vow. If ye do not heed 
The olive-branch in my hand, 

My sword shall flash and the nations bleed 
Who will not understand. 

"Do I dream a dream? Will ye not obey 
My mandate that war shall cease? 

Then, by my God, ye shall see me slay 
Thy God— The Prince of Peace!" 



82 



SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE 



SOMEWHERE in France due west of rov- 
ing hell, 
Where Death makes merry with his shot 
and shell, 
My boy tonight remembers me, perchance, 
And knows my soul is somewhere there in France. 

II. 

Somewhere in France the lips that I have kissed 
I see grown grim, and dimly through a mist 
His face seems pale, but there is in his glance 
A wondrous light he's found somewhere in France. 

III. 

Somewhere in France my mother's heart shall be 
Until the day he cometh back to me; 
Or it miay be — with God must rest the chance — 
My heart shall break, I know not where in France. 



KULTUR'S CHRISTMAS TREE 

THE most gigantic Christmas pine the world 
had ever seen 
Soared skyward in the starlight like a peak 
of evergreen; 
It seemed as if a forest had united just to be 
One night, in monstrous magnitude, a grim, symbolic 

tree. 
And there against the heavens in its majesty it rose, 
And like a fearsome phantom waved its shadow on 

the snows. 
Bedecked were all its branches, but not as heretofore ; 
The trunkless heads of men were there, and loose 

limbs red with gore. 
Where candles should be burning was the glare of 

sightless eyes; 
And the wind that stirred the branches sounded like 

a million sighs. 
Toys? You ask me were they hanging where we 

know they used to be. 
Playthings? Yes. There gleamed torpedoes that 

can kill beneath the sea. 
There were bombs that give a greeting and a fare- 
well all in one; 
There were hands that had a finger, and each finger 

clutched a gun. 
Oh, it was a merry Christmas tree, so black and 

broad and high, 



84 



And jolly with the weapons soldiers leave us when 

they die. 
The drifts beneath the soaring pine grew scarlet, 

and the night 
Was starless now and blacker, and the snow birds 

took to flight; 
The skulls grew gray and ghastly on the branches 

where they lay; 
And then the east turned red as blood — 'twas 

Kultur's Christmas Day! 



35 



HAIL, AND FAREWELL! 

L 

HAIL and farewell, crusaders, knights of a 
warring faith ! 
Ye march to the far-flung battle. Ye heed 
what the master saith: 
"Not peace, but a sword I bring ye — a sword that 

ye wield for me. 
In the name of the God, my Father, 'tis Caesar must 
bend the knee." 

XL 

Not peace, but the might of legions that fight for 

the love of peace; 
'Tis war, but it's waged by heroes who perish that 

war may cease. 
The banners that pass before us are symbols of love 

and light — 
They herald the dawn of a day that breaks at the 

end of Man's darkest night. 

in. 

Hail and farewell, crusaders, sons of our blood and 
soul! 

Not tears but our plaudits greet ye as ye march to a 
splendid goal. 

Ye have given thine all for a future that springs from 
the sacrificed — 

God strengthen thine hands, chivalrous, who brand- 
ish the sword of Christ! 



THE LITTLE METAL DISK 

HE'S going with the regulars, a strapping 
boy I know, 

To the border from Fort Slocum, where 
they taught him how to drill, 

How to sight a service rifle and to strike a bayonet 
blow, 

And to do all things he ought to do when called 
upon to kill. 

He looks well in his uniform, and, oh, his eyes are 

bright. 

He's fit and hard and healthy, and he goes to bed 
at nine; 

If it comes to blows and bullets on the border he 
will fight 

With the ecstacy of him who drinks too deep of 
heady wine. 

They've given him a soldier's kit and everything he 
needs, 

There's not a button lacking and his khaki is 
unsoiled ; 

On guns and ammunition are the pam^phlets that he 
reads, 

The nation may depend on him if we should be 
embroiled. 



37 



But there's one thing on his person which brings 
tears into my eyes, 

Though in the future it may help to make a hero's 
fame; 

He must not fall unknown at last, so on his breast 
there lies 

A little metal disk that bears my gallant soldier's 
name. 



38 



THE BELGIANS 

BOTH Caesar and Napoleon your bravery ex- 
tolled— 
They knew the peoples craven and they knew 
the peoples bold — 
And they v/ho weighed the might of men in nicely 

balanced scales 
Paid homage to the Belgians. But now the glory 

pales 
Your scions gained in Caesar's time, or when an 

ogre ran 
Red-handed over Europe whom they called the 

Corsican, 
Beside the splendor of the fame the men of Liege 

have won 
Who held the Vandal hordes in check and perished 

every one, 
And dying gave a warning cry, a saving hour, a 

chance 
That, through their death, meant dawning hope to 

England and to France. 



.S9 



A LITTLE BOY OF RHEIMS 

I, 

I MET in Rheims a tiny boy, a helmet on his head, 
A lonely sprite that wandered through a city of 
the dead; 
With school-books underneath his arms, he whistled 
as he ran. 

He was three feet in height, perhaps, but every 
inch a man. 



n. 

The grumbling of the German guns grew louder 

and then died, 
The little chap smiled up at me and trotted by my 

side ; 

Beneath the gaunt cathedral, shell-pitted and de- 
filed, 

The chatter of the cheerful lad my saddened soul 
beguiled. 



in. 

The helmet on his head, he said, might save him 

from the worst — 
A shell had killed his sister and his brother when 

it burst — 



40 



But he always felt like whistling when school was 

out and he 
Might chance upon a stranger as he'd taken up with 

me. 

IV. 

In Rheims there are no little ones who go to school 

today ; 
My jolly tot, so blithe and brave, has gone the 

lonely way ; 
He smiled at me and said good-bye, and he would 

see me — ^when? 
Vd have to take the long, long trail to find that 

boy again. 



41 



THE TALE OF AN ACE 

tfTT^WAS on the Place de I'Opera, in front of 
I a cafe, 

I sat in converse with an ace, and tried to 
make him say 

A thing or two about the war as waged in aero- 
planes 

Around the cradle of the winds, the nursery of 
rains ; 

To have him tell me how it felt to chase an Al- 
batross 

Five miles or more above the earth where waves of 
cloud-stuff toss. 

My ace, whose face was as a boy's descended from 

a hawk, 
Was like all birdmen who've achieved — he didn't 

wish to talk. 
But when he'd puffed a cigarette and sipped a bit 

of wine 
His tongue was loosened for the nonce, and so I 

made him mine. 

And this is what he told me ,as the crowd went 

surging by. 
The women clad in mourning for the men who do 

and die, 
The poilus and the officers, the Anzacs and the 

Yanks, 



42 



The tired from tk trenches and the wounded from 
the tanks. 

"IVe nuade my kill full many a time up there twixt 
us and God, 

Where I seem much nearer Heaven than to the 
bloody sod 

That flies so far beneath me, like the graveyard of 
a race 

That holds somewhere a yawning hole to lure an- 
other ace. 

"And tale on tale I could unfold of duels in the air, 
When to your lips there comes an oath that's more 

than half a prayer; 
When the Boche, who grows chivalrous, forgets he 

is a Hun 
There far above the scarlet earth and nearer to the 

sun; 
And fights you like a gentleman, and dies without a 

stain 
Upon an airman's honor in a tumbling, blazing 

'plane. 

"But this is what I wish to tell — 

I know you'll think I lie — 

I saw, one day, the spirit world from up there in 

the sky; 
Between me and the earth below from where, a 

bird, I flew, 
A million shadows of the dead broke on my startled 

view: 



43 



And to my frightened eyes there came a sight no 

man had seen, 
The clouds flew high above the fields with spectres 

in between. 

As if the countless graves that lay new-made on 

Europe's breast 
Had wearied of the sleepers who were dreaming of 

the West 
Now opened and released the dead that they might 

take to flight, 
I saw those white battalions pass in armies out of 

sight. 

"How long I gazed upon the wraiths of youth that 
war had slain, 

How long the spectral hosts held sway above the 
lost terrain, 

How long I mounted skyward, with my engine run- 
ning mad, 

I know not; but the vision passed — think you that 
I was glad? 

"You'll say 'twas sudden madness, that I'd killed 
too many Huns ; 

That the shock of shells was on me or the panic bom 
of guns, 

That the loneliness that birdmen know had terror- 
ized me when 

I gazed down on a phantom host that were and 
were not men. 

But what you think I do not care. You sec, I'm 
flying yet. 

Yes, thanks, I'll drink a drop of wine — smoke one 
more cigarette." 



44 



ATONEMENT 

IT is not chaos, this wild, whirling war 
That plunges nations into seas of blood; 
The crimson maelstrom is man's penance for 
An evil fruit he nourished in the bud. 

He knelt to kings, and kissed the royal hands 
That clutched the riches his grim toil had won 

From wandering waters and from far flung lands; 
For kings he sailed the seas that seek the sun. 

"God makes the monarch and the slaves he owns," 
The abject murmured as the ages fled; 

"They do His will who sit upon His thrones; 
Who dies for king is of the honored dead." 

Thus came a war a king of kings decreed, 
And millions perished for an ancient lie; 

But through red strife is man's strange spirit freed, 
And chains are loosed because our saviors die. 



45 



w 



THE WORD OF GOD 
I. 

HAT flows within the veins of you that you 
would kiss the rod? 

Are you too deaf to hear today the thrilling 
word of God? 

Are you too blind to see the hell that comes to them 
that rue 

The galling yoke of Vandals who are forging chains 
for j^u? 

n. 

What beats within the heart of you who patter 
prayers for peace, 

When what our foe most craves from us is that our 
fighting cease? 

God knows, whatever you may seem, you are not 
really men 

Who falter, when their red hands slay to make man 
slave again. 

HI. 

They'd take from you all things you love! God 
asks of you to give 

46 



A little of your strength and wealth that Liberty 

may live. 
What flows within the veins of you that you would 

kiss the rod, 
Unheeding of the warning word that is the word 

of God? 



41 



WHENCE COMETH WAR? 

STRANGE epidemics have swept o'er the earth 
In ages past and taken toll of men, 
And human life to God seemed little worth 
As thousands perished — and ten thousands then. 

Scourge after scourge has come upon the race, 
And run its course from land to sea and land; 

Its source mysterious no mind could trace, 
The dying passed and could not understand. 

What sin was man's that he should be thus cursed ? 

Why fell the innocent beneath a cruel rod? 
Death stalked abroad and did to man his worst. 

And nations murmured 'twas the will of God. 

But what of this blood madness now that runs 
From race to race as former scourges ran? 

The dying gaze upon night's million suns, 

And know that war comes not from God but man. 



48 



TOY SOLDIERS 

/ / >^OOD-BYE, my boy!" I said to him, for 
C T ^^ ^^"^ ^^^"^ South today. 

^"^ When he was a kid with soldier toys I 
used to watch him play. 
He wore a cap of martial cut and carried a sword 

and drum, 
"Just watch me, dad," he would cry to me. "At- 
tention! The foe has come!" 

The little tin soldiers he mustered there would 

tumble down one by one ; 
And then whole gaps in the ranks he'd make and 

the battle had begun ; 
He'd wink at me and nod his head and sound the 

charge again; 
And he'd pay the price of his blunderings with a 

regiment of men. 

He'd bring his cavalry into line and place his can- 
non there. 

And form his infantry battle front or into a hollow 
square ; 

He'd laugh and chatter and move his men and 
slaughter the foe in glee; 

And when the victory had been won he'd come and 
shake hands with me. 



49 



And now he's gone to the border. His daddy is all 

alone, 
And it seems to me my love for him is the only 

wealth I own ; 
I saw' him off with his troopers, and they are such 

splendid boys — 
It can't be God will do to them what children do 

to toys! 



50 



SPRING'S JUDAS KISS 

I. 

LONG, long ago it seems since, when spring 
came, 
Our love of life was kindled to a flame, 
And with the earth, that stirred and throbbed anew, 
Our souls rejoiced for every bud that grew. 

II. 

When Nature seemed a kindly friend to man, 
And through our veins a vaulting nectar ran 
That thrilled our hearts because God's world was 

fair, 
And flowers were here and love was everywhere. 

III. 

Ah, that was when we knew no dreams of seas 
Where white hands wave, and where the vernal 

breeze 
Its salt kiss gives to faces wet and wan 
That not again our eyes shall look upon. 

IV. 

Long, long ago — before the cannon sowed 
Their seeds of death, and o'er the earth there flowed 



51 



A flood of crimson, we could laugh and sing; 
And bless the sun for bringing us the Spring. 



Not so, not so is it with us today! 
The winter's winds held back the hands that slay 
And snowy curtains, falling o'er the plain, 
Silenced the guns that now shall speak again! 

VI. 

The sap is stirring in the trees, and, lo, 
Come hope and joy to lesser things that grow; 
And man alone must shudder at the Spring. 
Sang once his heart — but now the bullets sing! 



A MYSTERY 

I. 

TELL me, when shall I forget 
That dying boy? A bayonet 
Had pierced his breast. You see the Hun 
Grows often careless with his gun. 

IL 

In Chauny, desolate and sad, 

I looked upon the little lad 

Who'd dared to smile when Vandals passed, 

I looked and saw him breathe his last. 

in. 

Sometimes I can't believe they're true 
The deeds I know the Germans do. 
How can they murder little boys 
Who gave the world its Christmas toys? 



53 



FAILURE! 

THEY builded them a cannon that could carry 
shells afar 
Over countless realms of ether, till they struck 
the furthest star; 
And their monster gun they mounted on the highest 

vaulting peak, 
While the subject peoples waited to hear the weapon 
speak. 

Came thunder to the ends of earth and millions fell 
and died. 

The soaring temples raised by man sank shattered 
side by side. 

And lo! the shell that hate had wrought and devil- 
try had blown 

Sped onward through infinity — but could not reach 
God's throne! 



54 



THROUGH WAR THE TRUTH 

WHAT miracles this war has wrought! An 
age of unbelief 

Has found its ancient faith again ; and, torn 
and worn with grief, 
A race that bowed to idols that were made of painted 

clay 
Now hears God speaking in the storm that carried 

peace away. 
The lies that fell from laughing lips who dares to 

voice again? 
The coward cannot cloak his shame nor raise his 

head with men; 
And Dives is no longer rich, for all the gold of 

earth 
Makes not a whit of difference in what a man is 

worth. 
The screen that hid the hypocrite is trampled in the 

dust, 
A nation in its peril knows the man that it can 

trust; 
The agony the race endures will not admit of 

masks ; 
To be yourself, and only that, is all the moment 

asks. 
The heart of you stands naked before the searching 

eyes 



55 



Of a world that through its weeping has grown so 
strangely wise 

That the counterfeits, the brazen shams, the false- 
hoods, every one. 

Have fallen from the soul of man. The night of 
lies is done! 



56 



TIM THE TOUGH 

THIS is the tale of an East Side lad 
Who was proud to be noted as bold and bad: 
He was Tim the Tough, of the Gas House 
Gang, 
And his speech was coupled of oaths and slang. 
One day he was drafted. He tried to shy, 
And swore he was blind in a half -shut eye ; 
But they knew his kind and their bag of tricks, 
The slacker who lies and the kid who kicks, 
And Timothy Tuff, as he gave his name, 
Was sent to Upton— he'd lost the game. 

And time passed by and Timothy Tuff 

Became a soldier, alert but rough; 

And he who'd secretly toted a gun 

Would flourish his rifle and menace the Hun. 

And nobody knew, not even Tim, 

When a change that was radical came to him. 

Perhaps he listened when Roosevelt spoke 

To the rookies there, and his soul awoke 

To the splendid chance that had come to men 

To fight and die for a flag again 

Whose red stripes told of the blood they'd shed 

Who'd followed our banner where Freedom led. 



57 



Or maybe to Timothy Tuff there came 
A feeling of pride that was born of shame 
As his corporal's chevrons he won at last 
And he'd purged his soul of his lawless past. 
Whatever the reason, the fact is plain 
That Tim could never be tough again 
As when, as boss of the Gas House Gang, 
His fist shot out or his pistol rang. 

He found himself, in the course of time, 

In charge of a squad in a foreign clime, 

Where his ears grew keen to the snarl of shells. 

And he found there was more than one kind of hells. 

And there one night, to his volunteers — 

The old Gas Gang would have growled for beers — 

He gave his orders without an oath. 

With courtesy, clearness — he used them both; 

Then over the top, at the hint of morn, 

He led his men in a hope forlorn 

That the Boche might think that behind his back 

The line would welcome a mass attack, 

That the trenches he left were not thinly held 

By the few alive of the gassed and shelled. 

They talk of Tim in a Gas House dive, 

The few of the gang that is still alive 

And out of prison and on the loose, 

Who've dodged the draft and escaped the noose, 

And they tell the story the papers told 



58 



Of their reckless leader of days of old; 
And they hug their pride in his world^de fame» 
And the cross he won, and the honored name 
Of Lieutenant Tuff, who'd been man enough 
To prove his soul was of splendid stuff. 
"And before Tim croaked," some voice will say, 
Quoting the press in a crude, proud way, 
"Dey soi he yelled, in a tone dat rang: 
*I got five Fritzies — go tell de gang!' " 



HP 



THE BLASPHEMOUS 

THERE rose a nation in these latter days 
Misled, misguided, but in might supreme, 
The might that butchers and destroys and 
slays ; 
And as they fought they dreamed an evil dream. 
They were the chosen of a God they'd made, 
Who blessed their crimes and gave the earth to 

them. 
"A svi^ord, I bring not peace," v^as what He said. 
They slaughtered babes who spake of Bethlehem 1 

n. 

"I thank Thee, God," 'twas thus their Caesar spake. 
His head uncovered and his eyes upraised, 
"That 'neath the sea my pious warriors make 
The kind of havoc Thou hast ever praised. 
My gift to them who win on land or sea — 
A baby dead may be the foeman's loss — 
Is sacred symbol of Thy Son and Thee ; 
Who work my will shall wear a Christian Cross!" 



60 



NEVER AGAIN/! 

NEVER again must the horrors of the night- 
mare years be known, 
Never again the seeds of hate in the soul of 
a nation sown; 
Never through ages yet to be must the tragedy be 

played 
That desecrates the image of a god that God has 
made. 

Ye who would stay the hand that strikes that 

tyranny may die, 
Ye who are sad and sick at heart as years of war 

go by; 
Ye who are counting the price they pay who pass 

in the battle flame 
Be silent, ye, till the time shall come to plead in our 

Saviour's name. 

Beware, beware of the sacrilege that even a prayer 

may hold, 
The glass is dark through which we see His way 

with man unfold; 
But out of the storm that tortures a world that is 

black with war 
Comes light that shall show us, groping, what the 

sacrifice is for. 



61 



THE ONLY FREE 



I. 



OPEN thine eyes, O ye blind! 
There are warnings from over the sea. 
In the fate of the weak ye will find 
A threat should bring caution to thee. 

II. 

What though our ways may be just, 
And the heart of our nation be pure. 
It is Might that could say to us "Must!" 
The aim of its gunners is sure. 

III. 

Turn to the East or the West, 
Ye who dream of the coming of peace; 
See the strong from the impotent wrest 
What only men dying release. 

IV. 

Plough-shares and pruning-hooks ? Yes, 
They are nobler than cannon or gun; 
But only when freemen possess 
The gifts that God sends from the sun. 



62 



V. 

Rusted the tools in the grass 
Where the reapers of Belgium lie ; 
While they who were mightier pass, 
And they who were innocent die. 

VI. 

Open thine eyes to the light, 

O ye dreamers of dreams that betray; 

There is strength for the soul in the right, 

But they who are unrighteous slay. 

VII. 

Hearken, ye blind, to the truth. 
To the warnings from over the sea; 
For the strong and the ready, in sooth, 
Alone of all peoples are free. 



63 



I 



TWO CROSSES 

The Iron Cross. 

AM the symbol of the cult of blood. Who wins 
me must be true 



To them who would enslave the race. To flaunt 
me you must do 

Some deed of savage deviltry; your reddened hands 
must show 

Your heart is of the iron of the caveman's long ago. 

I rest upon the breast alone of him who fights and 
slays 

As brutes waged war upon the weak in those prime- 
val days 

When Man was half a jungle beast and fashioned 
gods of mud 

Who craved, his savage soul believed, the sacrifice 
of blood. 

The Iron Cross! The Iron Cross! It comes to 
them who wage 

A war for world dominion ; and, lo, again the slave 

Is torn from wife and children and scourged with 
whips and slain — 

With Iron Crosses on their breasts the Vandals roam 
again ! 



64 



The Red Cross 

I'm sprung from mercy, from Man's love for man. 

Who wears my cross must be 

Both gentle and heroic too. And where, on land 
or sea. 

Death's shadow falls and sorrows come and pain too 
great to bear 

You'll learn the wonder of my work, thank God 
that I am there. 

I bind up wounds or bid farewell to lonely souls that 
pass 

Where War has stretched his victims on the tram- 
pled, crimsoned grass; 

You'll find me where the shrieking shells take toll 
of youth and joy; 

I fight with weapons forged of love to foil them 
that destroy. 

The Red Cross is the cross of God, the God of Love 
who reigns 

Eternal and omnipotent. Earth's tragedies and 
pains 

Are mysteries we can not solve, but while my ban- 
ners wave 

The splendor of the Soul of Man shall triumph o'er 
the grave! 



65 



A SERVICE FLAG 



I. 



THERE'S a service flag a-waving from a win- 
dow in my street, 
With a blue star on the white of it; and 
every time I meet 
The woman clad in widow's black who flies that 

flag in pride 
I lift my hat in homage, as I linger by her side. 

II. 

Her only son she's given to the cause she knows is 
right, 

And she's working with her fingers that her boy may 
go and fight; 

She's old and gray and weary but she's brave, as 
others are 

Who pledge their sons to Freedom 'neath the em- 
blem of the star. 

III. 

There is grandeur in the sacrifice my widowed 

neighbor makes ; 
She has given all for country as her country's soul 

awakes ; 
The bunting in her window meaneth not that she 

would brag. 



That blue star on the white of it but glorifies the 
flag. 

IV. 

It glorifies the emblem and it glorifies a head 
That is white from toil and sorrow and the shadow 
of a dread; 

But I know that somewhere drilling for the battle- 
fields afar 

There's a boy in khaki proud to know his mother 
flaunts a star. 



67 



THE VOICE OF GOD 

IT is only the soaring mountain peak that echoes 
the voice of God, 
But its whisper comes to the souls of men who 
suffer, and kiss the rod; 
The rod that is red with the blood of slaves, the rod 

the anointed wield 
For them who have fashioned their flesh for it, who 
grovel and groan and yield. 

Not his alone is the crimson crime that makes Man's 

future dark 
Who bids ye fight 
That his martial might 
May quench God's kindled spark ; 
But thine the blame, 
And thine the shame, 
That ye sharpen thy swords and sing, 
As ye strive to make 
The wide world shake 
'Neath the tread of thy tawdry king. 

The word that's wafted to human hearts from sky- 
lines keyed to hear 
Is meant for ye 
Who bend the knee 
To him whose friend is Fear; 



68 



To him who calls the earth his own, 
All men as ye his prey; 
Who clutches crown and clings to throne 
Because his soldiers slay. 

But the voice of God, a searching voice, 

Shall reach the ears of ye 

Who are striving now 

To fulfill thy vow 

To conquer the earth and sea. 

The shame is his and the shame is thine, 

As hunting ye make thy kill; 

For thy king is deaf to the word divine, 

And ye wantonly do his will. 

Ye slay in the dark from an evil dream; 

But Cometh a gleam of light, 

And ye'U hear a voice, 

And ye'U make thy choice, 

And choose in thy king's despite. 

Thy hands are red and thy hearts are dead, 

And ye're wearing a blood-stained cross; 

As ye count the graves 

Of thy fellow-slaves. 

And ye shudder to learn thy loss. 

Ye face the phantoms that come and go, 

Where millions have bled and died ; 

And it may well be 

In the gloom ye see 

The Christ ye have crucified. 



But a sun shall rise on thy sullen eyes, 

That are dull from the deeds ye see, 

And thy souls shall learn with a glad surprise 

That God is calling to thee; 

Not the god ye worshipped of flesh and bone, 

A manikin made of clay, 

But the God who shall hold all men His own 

Forever as yesterday. 



70 



A TRANSPORT 



I. 



SOMEWHERE in the harbor— don't ask m€ 
where or when — 
I saw a steamer weirdly grim and on its decks 
were men, 
Clean-cut and trim and khaki-clad, and all of them 

were gay, 
As their ship crept seaward slowly in its painted 
coat of gray. 

11. 

Somewhere on the ocean tonight the khaki-clad 
I see in dreams that come and go, and, oh, my heart 

is sad; 
They've youth and hope and courage, and they feel 

the soldier's pride; 
But their ship comes homeward in my dreams — a 

red cross on its side! 

III. 

Sometime in the future — how soon we cannot 

know — 
The spectral ships that pass in gray will cease to 

come and go; 
But through the ages yet to be the story will be told 



71 



Of how they dared the danger-zone with heroes 
manifold. 

IV. 

Ever theirs the glory — ^why should we weep for 
them? 

Who sail as valiant soldiers of the Christ of Beth- 
lehem, 

Of Him who brought a sword to earth that all men 
might be free — 

For Christ shall conquer Caesar through them that 
sail the sea. 



72 



MADNESS DIVINE 

I. 

THEY'RE mad, our troops, the Vandals cry. 
But not as Vandals are! 
Their fever's not a fire from Hell who follow 
Freedom's star; 
Their frenzy's not a lust for blood, the caveman's 

itch to kill; 
They punish in the name of God, and sternly do 
His will. 

n. 

Their wrath is the crusading hate that laid the 

Paynim low, 
The rage of Cromwell's Ironsides who prayed and 

struck a blow; 
The madness of the Minute Man who clutched a 

clumsy gun 
And knew he served the Lord of Hosts that day 

at Lexington. 

III. 

They are insane as seamen were whose canvas 

caught the breeze 
What time the spiteful Yankee ships won freedom 

for the seas, 



73 



Insane as were the hosts in blue that met the hosts 

in gray 
On fields whose epic glory is a nation's pride today. 

IV. 

As they went wild who stormed the heights of San 
Juan's bloody hill, 

Our madmen on the Marne and Aisne dash on and 
make their kill ; 

Divine the rage God giveth them, the passion ruling 
them. 

Who slay the anti-Christ today for Him of Beth- 
lehem. 



n 



GOD, HEARTEN US! 

GOD, help us in this awful hour 
To check our bitter tears, that we 
Who pay the price may find the power 
To bend clear-eyed and worship Thee! 

That we may hear ourselves like men, 
Though, day by day, the lists grow long 

Of them we shall not see again ; 

God give us faith to keep us strong! 

God, hearten us that we may be, 

In these dread deeps of war and woe, 

Courageous, calm ; convinced that we 
Shall find Thee where our heroes go. 

God grant us smiles who long to weep! 

God stir our saddened souls to song! 
If we be brave, they'll sweeter sleep 

Who died because Thy world went wrong. 



75 



HIS BLACK SHEEP 

tt^TT^HE black sheep! The black sheep!" 
I we called them in our scorn; 

They'd come not to the pasture when 
the Shepherd blew His horn. 
They are not like His other sheep that gentle are 

and tame — 
The black sheep goes a-wandering to find an end 
in shame. 

But the war-wind blew its trumpet, and the black 
sheep heard the call, 

And, East and West and North and South, the mes- 
sage came to all : 

"The fire that drove you far afield your Shepherd 
needs today, 

Come to the pasture, black sheep, that were so long 
astray!" 

The black sheep, the black sheep, came running at 

the word, 
The only surrtmons clear to them that they had ever 

heard ; 
And, lo, the Shepherd's heart is glad, His sacred 

trust He'll keep. 
For the black sheep fighting now for Him are best 

of all His sheep. 



76 



RISE UP! RISE UP, CRUSADERS! 



N 



EVER in all the scarlet past 
Since God first placed the suns, 
Not when the Goths drank deep 
of blood, 
And women feared the Huns, 
Not when the hordes of Attila 
Made toys of flame and shame, 
Came call so clear 
For them to hear 
Who'd fight in Freedom's name. 

Rise up! Rise up, crusaders, to meet the hosts oi 
Hell! 

They prate of Art and Science but they give us shot 
and shell; 

They call on God, blaspheming, as they plunge their 

hands in gore; 
They've butchered millions, millions, and they'd 

butcher millions more. 

What hold they dear who dare the race 
To meet the might they wield? 
The smile upon a baby's face? 
The maid who would not yield? 
The faith that men and nations keep 
When sacred vows are made? 



77 



Why, then, should Europe's women weep ? 
Why preach we our crusade? 

Rise up ! Rise up, ye stalwart, to save a world from 

woe! 
The Hun is growing boastful. We must give him 

blow for blow. 
Where Goths and Vandals wake again 
From sleep that's ages long 
There's madness in the souls of men, 
And murder in their song. 
They are not men as men are known 
To human hearts alone; 
Their music is a woman's wail. 
Or dying hero's groan. 
They crave a world's dominion, 
And they come, a wanton flood, 
To drown the hopes that God gives man 
In seas of human blood. 

Rise up! Rise up, crusaders! 

Send forth a clarion cry! 

The race shall not be slaves to Huns 

Though you and I must die. 

A world at war? 

A billion men who arm and fight and slay ? 

What are our blaring bugles for? 

Is Man insane today? 

Not we to whom the call has come, 
Not we, the unafraid, 



78 



Now arming, God be with us, for the last, the great 

Crusade ; 
Nor they who fight our fight with us, 
Across the surging sea, 
Where men are facing madmen 
That all peoples may be free. 



19 



THE WRITING ON THE WALL 

I. 

YE emperors and princelings, ye kings and sons 
of kings, 
The writing on the wall reveals what Free- 
dom's future brings. 
No more shall royal cradles rock the rulers of the 

earth ; 
Who leadeth men shall be their choice because they 
know his worth. 

IL 

The sanction ye have claimed from God was sacri- 
lege and sin. 

Ye've filched from abject peoples to wrap thy terrors 
in 

Their right to life and liberty ; and from thy blood- 
stained thrones 

Ye've whitened fields that should be green with 
blight of human bones. 

III. 

Ye autocrats and despots, the thunders that ye hear 

Come from the mouths of millions who have for- 
gotten fear; 

Who shout thy battle-cries no more but menace thee 
and thine — 

TheyVe read the writing on the wall and know it 
is divine! 



80 



ALAS, 'TWAS NOT A DREAM ! 

I DREAMED a dream. Reclining on a cloud 
I watched the earth beneath me as it turned ; 
And to my ears came thunderings, long and 
loud. 
I saw the glare where splendid cities burned. 

II. 

I heard great moanings and shrill, anguished cries; 
A million dead on fields of mud or snow 
Lay motionless and eerie, and their eyes 
Gazed upward lifeless from that tomb below. 

III. 

In valleys and on mountains throngs there seemed 
Of women and of children, silent, sad ; 
And armies passed and I, who saw and dreamed, 
Looked down upon a world that had gone mad. 

IV. 

The spring had touched it with its loving hand, 
And buds and flowers and velvet grass were there; 
But there beneath me on the sea and land 
Man wrought for man more grief than he could 
bear. 



81 



V. 

'Twas but a dream. My brothers cannot be 
The brutes my vision pictured them, I know. 
The strife I saw in that grim fantasy 
Was some mad memory of the long ago. 

VI. 

'Tis true of sleep the pictures that it paints 
May be a heritage from distant years ; 
A cave man's thought perhaps our dreaming taints, 
Our nightmares spring from our primeval fears. 

VII. 

And so I know the earth is free today 
From those black horrors that I saw in sleep; 
Man's grown too noble to destroy and slay, 
And children laugh and women do not weep. 

VIII. 

A joyous world! Let me not dream again 
Of ruined cities and of fields of dead; 
My sleep betrayed me, for I know that men 
Have slain the beast, are not by passion led. 

IX. 

I know there is no nation 'neath the sun 
Would dominate all peoples, make them slaves; 
The night deceived me and today the Hun 
Is wondrous kind and benefits and saves. 



X. 

He'd slay our souls? You see him red with blood? 
Nay! Nay! You're dreaming, as I dreamed anon. 
You say he slaughters and a crimson flood 
Is what, awake, I really look upon? 

XL 

Then, if it's true, and cave-men, come again, 
As heartless once, but erudite and skilled. 
Wage wanton war as in the old days, when 
They followed Atilla and burnt and killed, 

XII. 

Ah, let me hurry to the battle-line; 

No dreamer now, but with defiant eyes 

Facing the foe, and for a cause divine 

Strike blow for blow before Man's freedom dies! 



83 



BROADWAY 

ARE we dreaming 'neath the glitter of the 
garish lights that throw 
Their glowing gleam on Broadway where 
the youthful come and go ; 
Where the laughter and the chatter and the echo of 

a song 
Were music to the heart of me before the world 
went wrong? 

The faces that we used to see with starbeams in 

their eyes 
Are heavy now and mournful, and we catch a hint 

of sighs; 
And tears are not so far away from lids that droop 

tonight 
As they fall beneath the glance of him who's ready 

for the fight. 

There's khaki just in front of us and sailor blue 

behind, 
And Broadway is a crazy quilt of heroes who have 

dined 
On dishes that were dainty from the touches that 

were French — 
What is it they will get to eat when they are in a 

trench ? 

And tears are in the eyes of us. We see them 
through a mist, 



84 



The boy who goes to face the foe, the girl that he 

has kissed ; 
We'll find them there on Broadway if you stroll up 

there with me ; 
The maiden doomed to weep alone, the lad to sail 

the sea. 

The heart of Broadway's broken, there is sorrow in 
the air, 

Where youth was wont to wander in a world with- 
out a care. 

The khaki-clad may smile and smile as if their hearts 
were light. 

But in our dream we see them prone, and oh, their 
lips are white! 

Nay, come not up to Broadway unless your heart is 

stone ; 
There's merriment in crowds, perhaps but soldiers 

die alone. 
To say good-bye in whispers, and to touch her hand 

and lips 
May fill his soul with rapture — but they're calling 

from the ships! 

They're calling him from Broadway, from the maid- 
en at his side; 

Their prows are turned toward bleeding France; 
they're sailing with the tide. 

Nay, stroll not there with me at eve unless your eyes 
are blind 

To her my hero leaves tonight — to what he goes 
to find. 



85 



BE SILENT NOW! 

STAND voiceless, ye, and wait! The die is 
cast, 
Ye cannot change our fate who prattle now 
of what can never be. 
The present, with its clarion cry, is ours; the past 
A sunken bell beneath a silent sea. 

Look forward and forget the deeds that were not 
done. 

The words that meant so little in the end; 
The cry is "Onward !" with our task begun 

To keep the faith that freemen must defend. 



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THE CHIMES 



I. 



WHAT is the message they're bringing to 
thee, 
The chimes that ring from the old church 
tower ? 
Why does the universe seem to be 

Sweet to our souls as they strike the hour ? 

II. 

For sin and sorrow are still of earth, 

And Heaven is fully as far away; 
But the steeple's music makes better worth 

The struggle and strife that are ours today. 

HI. 

What is it telling us, spreading far ^ 
In rythmic ripples of resonant song? 

An old, sweet tale of a wond'rous star, 

And Him whom the world had awaited long. 

IV. 

The earth-sounds mingle and rise and fall. 

There are women weeping and babes that cry, 

And godless men, but, above them all, 

The chimes are singing; "Ye shall not die." 



87 



V. 

"Ye shall not die, for thy souls are mine ; 

Give heed to the message my music brings.'* 
The seed of the Truth that is God's is thine; 

New hope to the world when the steeple sings. 



88 



EDITH CAVELL 

I. 

NOT love of my dear country's cause 
Can fill the loyal soul of me, 
But on the brink of death I pause 
That hate may take no toll of me. 

II. 

They slay me, but my word shall rise, 
Forgiving them that say of me 
The slanders that are spawn of lies. 
Ye kill me, but I pray for thee. 

III. 

I pray for thee who do me wrong. 
For love of God is all of me ; 
And from my grave in poet's song 
The truth I spake shall call to thee. 

IV. 

Shall call to thee who slay in lust 
Of power that can not come to thee; 
Who dream a dream whose madness must 
Make God's voice ever dumb to thee. 



V. 

The creed I hold, the deed ye do, 
Are not made one — can never be. 
The hope I have, the God I knevt^. 
Are true to me — shall ever be. 



do 



UNDER WHICH FLAG? 

I. 

UNDER which flag? You can not serve them 
both. 
A vow you took. Is not an oath an oath? 
A bit of bunting? Is it but a rag 
That sometimes is and then is not your flag? 

II. 

Sometime, perhaps, when Peace has come to earth, 
One banner for all men shall have its birth; 
When War shall be a horror that has passed 
Earth's Federal flag may glorify a mast. 

III. 

But dreams are dreams. The Parliament of Man 

Is still today, as since the world began, 

A flight of fancy in a world of fact. 

You must set limits when you make a pact. 

IV. 

To swear allegiance is a solemn thing. 
Who's for Democracy is not for King. 
Who makes a choice between the two must be 
For one or other firm in loyalty. 



91 



V. 

The love of country where you had your birth 
Remains a passion that proclaims your worth. 
But Freedom called you, and you grasped her hand 
Beneath the flag of your new Fatherland. 

VI. 

A people free? A people ruled by one? 
To be the first you trailed the setting sun. 
To you warm welcome was the gift we gave 
Above whose heads the starry banners wave. 

VII. 

Be not deceived! Your ill-timed plaint's unjust. 
One flag, one country and one God our trust! 
Be true, be loyal to the land that now 
Demands of you fulfillment of your vow. 



»2 



TOLSTOY'S DREAM 



I. 



1HAD a vision of a woman beautiful and nude, 
Her hair bedecked with jewels and her arms 
and neck with gold ; 
Her eyes were soft, seductive and her smile was sly 
and lewd, 

There was witchery for nations in the ecstasy she 
sold. 

II. 

She spake and victims followed to the fate she led 
them to, 

'Twas in the name of Commerce that she plied her 
evil trade; 

And ever in a wanton world her power and peril 
grew ; 

For her the lords of treachery their tissue treaties 
made. 

III. 

She held three torches in her hand to lure the souls 
of men : 

Hypocrisy and Bigotry gave one its fatal flame, 
The second from Tradition glowed with lies that 
live again, 

To cheat the generations as they're sinking to their 
shame. 



IV. 

The third, whose fire was fed from flesh that*s found 

on battlefields 
Burned brighter as the courtesan made beacon of it 

there. 
To the torch of War the splendor of the other 

torches yields, 
For its glory's of the frenzy of the maddened men 

who dare. 



V. 

I saw a world aflame with strife because this harlot 
smiled ; 

I saw great cities burning and the country-side de- 
spoiled, 

I gazed upon the stricken fields with dead and dying 
piled, 

With the harvests of the summertime with bloody 
torrents soiled. 



VI. 

For years on years o'er all the world man warred 

with fellow-man, 
And thrones were tossed and kings were killed — 

and then my hope came true, 
From East to West, across all seas, the word of 

promise ran; 
Man's fellowship grew mighty to destroy the curse 

he knew. 



94 



VII. 

And I saw a wanton woman, with her torches black 

and prone, 
Lying dead within the darkness of the shadows of 

the night, 
And beyond her on the gory soil a sceptre and a 

throne 
Lay shattered, in the glow of dawn that glorified 

my sight. 



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